


Do A Number On Them

by Asasin



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Being An Assassin, Boss Kills, But It Was A Lot Harder In The Game, Gen, He Makes It Look Easy, Kicking Some Serious Butt, Making Awesome Kills, No Plot/Plotless, Random & Short, Updates Sporadic, Zer0 Is Bad Ass, ghosting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-02-19 00:29:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2367614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asasin/pseuds/Asasin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short drabbles about Zer0 just being bad ass and making boss kills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Half-Man of Alloy Metal & The Tin Can

**Author's Note:**

> These 'chapters' revolve around descriptions of Zer0 making awesome kills. Nothing more nothing less. (Oh, and the kills are in random order so there's really no following the game's timeline!)  
> Enjoy ~

There isn’t a second to waste and yet he wasted two times as many as the average man could. He could even wait seconds longer, he is so good like that. Still, time is curiously against him nonetheless. Not one to vanquish a perfect opportunity, he rounds up the half-robot half-man’s back. His movements are nimble and fluent, bringing him to his target’s vulnerability efficiently. His companions have ceased fire and all feels abruptly silent.

The universe dabbles in a queer moment of awkward peace and lunacy. The shy nanosecond passes as quickly as it had come, ended by him thrusting his sword into Wilhelm’s gullet.

Blood blossoms from the fresh wound like a fire melon roasting in overcooked plumpness. The crimson effect sprinkles vilely over the already disturbed snow, distributing a look of bleak contrast over purest white.

His ECHO comes alive with impressed chatter. “That wasn’t so hard,” Salvador scoffs, walking up to the fallen robot-man’s body and giving his metallic leg a good kick. Zer0 watches the frozen form in quiet content. With his desire to kill no longer parched, he feels a pleasantly satisfied chill stroke his inner assassin: this was a good kill.

-+-

The Tin Can (Or Bloated Whale If You Speak Robot)

He poises for the strike. Lithe body loose, sword held at high guard, and eyes set with death behind a cold, hard mask of black. The gentle crackle of his suit’s camouflage hums a soft rhythm, a slight malfunction from Pandora’s atmospheric pressure tampering with some of his sensitive high-tech functions.

But he doesn’t need ghosting to make a kill… it’s only a convenience.

The world is flaring into destructive motion around him. Guns blaze, their hot barrels rattling loudly and spewing lead as magazines are guzzled of their rounds. Spiraling lead tears into metal constructed bodies, ripping them open like tin cans. Other bullets splatter into concrete or ricochet off alloyed metals to buzz off scene.

The hysterical laughter of an adrenaline-high dwarf erupts into the air.

His decoy spawns, a flawless duplication of himself poised to look dangerous and all-attention grabbing. As bullets rampage the false double, he silently slips away, a cherry blossom mutely twirling to the ground, a spiderant shifting beneath the sand.

His body leaps into motion, a flex and single unit snapping into mute action. He hurls himself forward with graceful, long strides.

His momentum gains; he is a stalker ambushing its prey.

The weight of his body is gone, the pull of the universe seem to dissolve like dust particles beneath his fingertips. He has thrust his body upward in a fluent and agile motion.

Gravity seems to bide him ado as he climbs through the air towards the back of his target.

The assassin shifts the flow of his sword as his feet touch the alloy metal of the great mechanical weapon’s back. He rolls down the length, gracefully topping over the front in a somersault. Landing on his feet in a low crouch, he glances slightly over his left shoulder. His dexterous blade thrusts under his left arm and clashes into the single, critical weakness of the great robot’s body: it’s florescent, beady red eye.

The charge of electrical malfunctioning cackles loudly. W4R-D3N staggers and a mewl sounds from somewhere beneath the surface of its cumbersome, metallic body. It awkwardly stomps its front legs in an almost humanistic gesture of pain.

Zer0 quickly shifts his body around to face the oversized loader, sheathing his sword along the way. His decoy and camouflage are about to withdraw. The price he pays for the excellency of both is the curt time length. But like any good assassin, hunter, or predator, he understands and appreciates adaptability. The forever-influencing movements of chance are a current Zer0 smoothly flows with—to bend is a greater advantage than to strain and break.

The assassin’s right hand clenches around the smooth handle of his Jacob’s revolver. One fluent movement and his gun is level with the loader’s eye. His finger squeezes down on the trigger, unloading his first round. Four more follow. And as the last bullet prepares to leave the chamber, Zer0’s camouflage disappears.

He is a single assassin kneeling before a toppling loader.


	2. Cold Iron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zer0 and his pals head to Lynchwood to take care of a little-too-crazy sheriff.

He could smell the creamy tan desert sand: rich and salty with an earthy parched tinge. Its soft sands shift sporadically beneath his feet as he throws himself forward. He can hear the sparse whisper of the aggravated specks twisting away from his body's weight.

When he disappears, his whole body seems become enlightened with every scent and sound. The world seems vivid with the colors of the six senses. He can taste the fresh blood perspiring from wounds, hear the rounds of bullets shells drop in the sand, smell the acidic gunpowder polluting the air, and see a single drop of sweat forming on Sheriff Nisha's forehead. Perhaps most keenly he can feel the handle of his sword. Beneath his fingers it seems to pulsate, hungry to taste the bittersweet sensation of the hum his sword seems to vibrate with as it meets vulnerable flesh.

Then, afterwards, there will be a streamlined flow of a singular color: the color of life. It’ll paint the sand like the sunset. And, like the sunset, it will fade with darkness.

He focuses on his target wholly. Nothing else matters. The rest of the world has fallen behind. The delighted shouts of Salvador drop into the background with the hailing of bullets, the sound of Axton's turret folding up, and the crackle of Maya's siren powers. It's only the sheriff and him. Though she is as oblivious to this as he is as aware of it.

He shreds his way threw another one of her thugs, only meager steps away from his prey. He can smell the sweet tanginess of her sweat and perfume mingling. There's a fierce glint in her eyes: She's a woman of little patience and a fast gun hand. She squeezes off her revolver at his companions as if she's been holding a gun before she was a binky. But he can see the flaw of her arrogance like the skag knows the smell of meat—rotten or fresh. It tears at her defenses and leaves her an easy target for him. A pity—he was hoping for a challenge.

His blade kisses her neck as she flicks open the cylinder on her revolver. The words never reach her mouth, but the look in her eyes says everything. The shock draws onto her face where it becomes permanent. The fresh bullets for her gun fall out of her hand, pelting the warm, salty sand before her body. As she sags to her knees, the gunfight seems to halt in time to observe her death.

By the time her body falls, Zer0 is already is already halfway across the field back to his companions. Her death felt too easy to accomplish, but the purr of satisfaction that rides in his chest assures him was a good kill nonetheless.


	3. The Demon Hunter Who Sang A Lullaby

The skag’s roar tears across the dusty opening. The force of the howling fury of breath tearing out her lungs sounds like Pandora’s plates are shifting. The gaping hole of her maw seems as if it could swallow Helios it stretches so wide.

Dukino’s mother’s body is sinewy with muscles and bulk. The thick boney armor that scraps over her form is like a carapace. At her shoulders the bone thrusts out like rough javelins. It crawls down her back protruding like miniature mountains. Meanwhile, a smoother carapace that covers most all the vulnerable tissue masks her chest and underbelly. In only a few places a maroon red is visible and even this unarmored flesh is obtuse.

Zer0 keeps himself hidden behind one of the oddly convenient boulders in her cavern. “La madre que te parió!” Salvador screams from the boulder beside him. He’s reloading his hefty LMG for the second time.

This isn’t working.

Zer0 peers at the enormous skag. Her left side is facing him, her attention on Axton and Maya. They’re huddled behind another boulder as she roars at them, creating a sort of vortex. The sound makes the cavern shake and sizable rocks loosen from the ceiling. “Meirda!” Salvador shouts as one of the rocks almost falls on him. “I hope one of them break open your skull!” he screams at the skag.  
“That’s not even possible,” he says. But Salvador’s mouth is like a motor when he starts cussing, and he doesn’t even notice Zer0’s said anything.

That’s fine by Zer0. He has other things planned, such as taking care of Mommy. He sprints from his cover and jumps onto her back leg. She gives it a little wiggle, but otherwise ignores him. He scales up the appendage, using the shelves in her armor like a ladder. Jumping and climbing down her back like an obstacle course, he feels a cool chill running down his back.

He feels focused, intent on the kill. Nothing can distract him now. His mind is a one-way road, there’s no going back: only forward. Each step he takes, each soft scuffle on his feet against her brittle carapace seems to slow his heartbeat more and more.

At the nape of her neck, he assembles four grenades. They attach to any surface and release three smaller explosions. It’s not very subtle or clean, but he doesn’t always have the luxury of a simple, quiet kill.

He doesn’t need to think, doesn’t need to take a breath. Jumping forward is as effortless as walking. Taking life like breathing: it’s second nature to him. As he leaps forward from her forehead and twirls himself around, he throws the grenades into her gapping mouth. They attach to her tongue, jaw, and teeth.

Four seconds.

Four seconds before their done cooking. He loosens his body, letting the fall take him. It’s 7 meters down. That gives him 1.20 seconds total before impact. Or half a second now. He rolls onto the dusty ground and starts running.

One second…

He throws himself behind a boulder and hunkers down. The explosions rattle the cavern. Blood and various body parts spray past the boulder. The ground is a portrait of red.

His ears are ringing slightly, but he hears Axton shout: “Woo-hoo!” Salvador’s large hand is on his shoulder, shaking it.  
“You’re crazy, amigo!” he laughs. “I like it!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to suggest bosses.
> 
> Meirda = shit  
> La Madre que te parió = the mother who gave birth to you (basically: motherfucker)
> 
> These translation are unofficial. I apologize if they're wrong.


	4. Queen Among Spiderants

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The queen loses her crown.

The Black Queen's scream was a sound caught between metal scrapping across metal and a varkid roasting alive. Her body was black as the night, a color infrequent and deadly beautiful on a spiderant. She’s a rare specimen, a beautiful, exotic creature.

In spite of it, she had no reputation. There’s no hunter’s bounty and boastful talk of killing her. Hidden away in a small crevasse, she’s been left to her brood and the ends of survival. This was a survival incompatible with the local bandits so adamant to claim the crevasse as their own.

Bodies a few days old were strewn across the changing sands. Their limbs and blood were cascaded like a bloody, abstract painting. Nearby a few bandit guns and a few Torgue lay half buried in the sand. The only standing reminiscence of their existence was three rough, metallic hovels. They’re half destroyed and filthy, like most things on Pandora.

She had tasted blood before, smelled the fear of human. She knew their kind, their scent. He could see the way her body squirmed and wiggled. She enjoyed killing the fools who thought they could claim her territory. And she would just as easily, if not willingly, kill again.

She reared up, slashing her appendages, trying to appall her enemy with her shear size and ferocity. Her thick head shook about, shielded by a broad carapace that doubled as her crown. It fanned out to an impressive girth, assuring everyone of her royalty among the spiderants.

The queen's body was clad in thick armor, but she still had one deadly weakness. Her gaster was unprotected and unlike other spiderants hers was very large, an attribute to producing eggs.

It’s an easy target, a dangerous weakness. However, from the front, it was slim enough that her massive crown hides it. He needed to attack from behind, attack her weakness.

He’s an assassin; an enemy’s weakness is his greatest advantage. His methods need to be quick, efficient. He relies on stealth, knowing where his enemy is softest. It wastes the least amount of energy and lets him move onto his next contract quickest. This isn’t a contract—there hasn’t been since the political assassination—but this is still the same thrill. It’s sick, in a way. Demented even. But he’s got his hobbies and skills just like everyone else.

He threw his out his ghost as she charged, swinging to the left while she lunged left. The only evidence of his movement was the silent movement of sand. It spread beneath his feet as he swung around behind her. It was easy, almost too easy. Her gasper was vulnerable and arched, an easy target. He swung his sword out, slicing it in half.

The Black Queen squealed madly, swinging around in rage. He rolled backwards, avoiding her legs. It was a matter of revenge to her now. A queen so fierce and majestic would not give up her throne so easily. She was proud and pissed, a lethal combination. She riled up the sand, swinging around. Her guts and blood coated the sand. She was killing herself faster.

He retreated to a safe distance, watching her wail as she collapsed. This was not a kill. It was… regretful even. He does not make his prey suffer. Well, so long as they did not deserve it.

His ghost disappeared, but she is no longer a threat, nor is her brood. He killed them long before. That’s why she appeared. She was angry. He walked up to the queen, hearing her whistling hissing. In her own tongue, he could imagine her cursing him. He swung his sword and the hissing stopped.

His ECHO lite up: “Zer0, where the hell are you?” Axton. He sounded exasperated. Perhaps he should have said something before exploring.  
“I am coming,” he replied.

**Author's Note:**

> I wonder if Axton, Salvador, and Maya are going to get tired of Zer0 taking all the kills? XD
> 
> Side Note: Postings will occur the moment an idea about Zer0 taking down a random boss from Borderlands 2 hits me. Not sure about how many chapters there will be, but some of them may include two different kills because they're so short.


End file.
